THE ROSE OF TRALEE FROM A to Z

The Kerryman’s veteran Rose of Tralee reporter, Simon Brouder, provides the essential details on the ins and outs of the festival over the years

A is for Ashe Hall

The Ashe Hall on Denny Street was the home of the festival in its formative years. The first Rose Selection in 1959 took place at a local dance and after a few years the event moved to the Ashe Memorial Hall which was then used as a cinema with seating for 680 people.

Telefís Éireann first broadcast the Rose Selection live in 1967 from a stage outside the Ashe Memorial Hall and compere for TV was the late Joe Lynch, better known as Dinny from Glenroe. By 1972 it was obvious that the demand for tickets far outstripped capacity at the Ashe Hall and the original Rose Dome was purchased making its debut 1973.

B is for Budget

Over its 55 year history the Rose of Tralee festival has grown steadily to become a multi-million euro big budget TV spectacular costing up to €2.3 million a year to stage. That wasn’t always the case, the cost of staging the first Rose of Tralee International Festival in 1959 came to a whopping £750, which admittedly was a lot at the time.

C is for Circus

The Circus has always been a big part of the festival and in 1961 the participation of some animals from Bertram Mills circus in the Festival Parade led to much mirth around the town.

As the parade paused at the junction of Moyderwell and Castle Street one large circus elephant felt nature calling and left a sizeable deposit in the middle of the road. So large were the elephant’s leavings that they were subsequently referred to as Tralee’s first roundabout.

D is for Dott

Dorothy ‘Dott’ Henggeler was the 2011 Washington DC Rose and tragically she passed away in 2014 at the age of 27 as the result of a brain tumour. In 2015 her parents Dick and Eibhlin, who remained closely involved with the Rose of Tralee since Dott’s untimely passing purchased the Fels Point Hotel. They rechristened the refurbished hotel as The Rose Hotel and it is now the official home of the festival. The beautiful Rose Walk in Tralee Town Park is named in Dott’s honour.

E is for Escorts

Two gentlemen who were Escorts have attained a measure of fame outside their Festival roles. Former Dublin Lord Mayor Royston Brady and Bull Island’s Alan Shortt were both Escorts. Alan Shortt got his first break as a comedian when Gay Byrne brought him on stage during Rose Selection to tell a few jokes. This year’s escorts include 2FM broadcaster Carl Mullan among their number.

F is for Festival Founders

Four well known Tralee men are generally credited with founding the modern Rose of Tralee. Having met over a few drinks in Harty’s Bar on Castle Street, now Baily’s Corner, Florence O’Connor, Ned Nolan, Joe Grace and Roger Harty decided to completely rebrand the festival and use the famous old ballad as its central theme. We must also mention the man credited with restarting the carnival itself in 1957 John Quilter without whom the festival as we know it may never have happened at all.

G is for Gay Byrne

For almost 20 years the Irish broadcasting legend was as an integral part of the festival as the Roses themselves. He presented the Rose of Tralee 17 times between 1978 and 1994 during which time he carried out onstage interviews with around 500 Roses.

H is for Hannagen Day

The 1984 Rose of Tralee, Diane Hannagen from Limerick was declared an Honorary Citizen of Arlington, Massachusetts and March 27 was named “Diane Hannagen Day.”

I is for Irish ancestry

Originally every Rose had to be a native of Tralee, but this condition was relaxed in the early sixties when the rules were changed and entrants were allowed from anywhere in Kerry. In 1967 the rules were relaxed again and being of “Irish birth or ancestry” became the main entry requirement.

J is for Judging

There are many criteria used by judges to select the winning Rose but generally the winner is picked because she meets three key requirements. Personality and presence, social awareness and presentation, accomplishments.

K is for Kerry Rose

The Kerry Rose has never won the Rose of Tralee title though one Tralee woman has worn the famous tiara. Junior nurse Margaret O’Keeffe Flynn won the crown in 1964 when she was the Tralee Rose becoming the sixth winner of the title. Here’s hoping that this year’s Kerry Rose, Danielle O’Sullivan from Killarney, can at last bring the title home to the Kingdom.

L is for Lights

The town’s impressive street lighting, put up especially each year for the Festival, was first introduced in the early sixties. Pieces were brought from the world famous Blackpool Illuminations, which gives an idea of the extent and impact of the display. The streets of Tralee were covered in coloured windmills, lighted clowns, floral arrangements and rockets all surplus to Blackpool requirements and restored by ESB electricians.

M is for Most wins

Dublin has won the contest more often than any other Centre, five times in all, beginning with Alice O’Sullivan in 1959, Ciara O’Sullivan (1962), Cathy Quinn (1969), Sinead Boyle (1989) and Orla Tobin (2003).The only Centre to have won the title in successive years is London, in 2010 (Clare Kambamettu) and 2009 (Charmaine Kenny). The closest runner up is New York which won in 1974 (Maggie Flaherty) and 1976 (Marie Soden)]

N is for Naming the festival

The original proposed title of the event was the Festival of Tralee. However a member of the New York Kerrymen’s Association recommended Festival of Kerry as a title that would facilitate support by Kerry emigres from other parts of the county.

It was in the 1970s that then editor of The Kerryman newspaper, Seamus McConville, suggested that the title Rose of Tralee International Festival be used to strengthen the link to the song and to reflect the growth of the event worldwide.

O is for O’Sullivan

Alice O’Sullivan was the first ever winner of The Rose of Tralee. In 2009, she was one of the judges for the 50th anniversary of the festival.

Born in Dublin her father was a civil servant in Tralee. Then working as an air hostess, she entered the Rose of Tralee at the age of 19. She later noted that she had to enter the hall alone as there was no escort system in the early years. In those days media hype around the Rose of Tralee was virtually non-existent and O’Sullivan managed to get away with claiming that her cousin had won instead of her.

P is for Parades

Parades have always bee a huge part of the Rose of Tralee. In 1967 RTE’s first TV broadcast from the Rose of Tralee featured a parade of well known Irish entertainers outside the Ashe Hall and decorative floats for the parade were introduced the same year, though this wasn’t without some teething problems.

The first floats featured a background based on a scallop shell which had to be replaced just days before the festivals when somebody realised that the design was a little too similar to a well known global oil company’s logo. Initially floats were floral and countless hours were spent decorating them with hundreds of thousands of artificial flowers.

Q is for Queen of the Carnival

The Festival as it is today stems from Tralee’s Carnival Queen, a once a thriving annual town event which fell by the wayside due to post-war emigration. In 1957 the Race Week Carnival was resurrected and the event included a contest to find a Carnival Queen. The winner of the first Carnival Queen was Beatrice Spring a first cousin of the former Tanaiste and Labour leader Dick Spring.

A year later a group of local business people met in Harty’s Bar in Tralee and decided to revamp the Carnival in a bid to regenerate the town, encourage tourism and most importantly to keep the racing crowds in town overnight. The new event would be called a festival and the carnival queen contest turned into a celebration of the Rose of Tralee song. The Rose of Tralee was born.

R is for Rose of Tralee

There is an actual rose named The Rose of Tralee. Sam McGredy was an internationally renowned Portadown rose grower who became involved with the Festival in the 1960s. He bred and registered the Rose of Tralee rose and presented rose bushes to Tralee, which still grow in the Town Park’s Rose Garden.

S is for Storms

On two occasions the Rose of Tralee has been badly affected by freak storms and windy weather. The original festival Dome (bought in 1973 for £17,500 the equivalent of the previous year’s entire festival budget) was destroyed by a storm on the final day of the festival in 1983.

In 1997 Part 2 of the Rose of Tralee Selection was postponed for a night due to stormy weather that threatened to bring down the Dome for second time. The event was moved across the road to the Brandon Hotel where it took place the following night.

T is for TV Hosts

Uncle Gaybo may be the most famous Rose host of all but plenty of others have taken charge of the Dome stage over the years. Past comperes include Kevin Hilton, Joe Lynch, BBC star Terry Wogan, Brendan O’Reilly of RTÉ sports, Michael Twomey of ’ Cha and Miah, Kathleen Watkins, Derek Davis, Marty Whelan, Ryan Tubridy and Ray D’Arcy.

Current host Dáithí Ó Sé has presented the Rose of Tralee on six occasions since taking on the role in 2010. However his links to the festival go deeper than that. He was the Chairperson of the International Judging Panel in 2009 when the Festival celebrated 50 years. Dáithí was also a Judge in 2008 and in July of 2012 he married the 2008 New Jersey Rose, Rita Talty.

U is for Unmarried mums

In 2008, in what was an historic departure for the festival, single mothers were allowed to enter the contest for the first time in its five decade history.

V is for TV Viewers

The Rose of Tralee is always one of the most watched shows on Irish television. RTÉ’s live coverage of the Rose selection has become a national institution and it has remained among their top rated show for years, with up to a million people tuning in every year for the result.

Last year over 1.7 million people tuned in to watch the Rose of Tralee over the two nights of televised coverage on RTE One. One in two Irish viewers tuned in to watch as Meath’s Elysha Brennan was crowned the 2015 Rose of Tralee. It also proved a huge hit online with 72,000 watching proceedings online and 52,000 Rose related Tweets sent out during the live broadcasts.

W is for Walsh

2014 Rose of Tralee winner Maria Walsh became the first ever Rose of Tralee to come out as gay earning great praise and admiration for her poise and honesty in the wake of her surprise announcement.

X is for X-Factor

That unquantifiable quality possessed by all winning roses.

Y is for Yorath

Did you know that well known BBC sports broadcaster Gabby Yorath (now Gabby Logan) started her lengthy media career as a Rose. Yorath, the daughter of a renowned Leeds United footballer Terry Yorath was the Leeds Rose in 1991.

Z is for Zzzzzzzzzz

What everyone in Tralee need’s post festival.